Asklemmy

43807 readers

854 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Feeling lost and with no direction, what skill should I learn? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

101 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi everyone. I am feeling like I've lost any direction after getting laid off earlier this year (was working as an analyst in telecom and very recently landed a much lower position in healthcare data entry due to necessity). I already have several hobbies but I am either burnt out on them or they have lost their luster (similar to how life has lost its luster for me this past 6 months).

I would really love to learn a new skill, preferably using my hands to create something while challenging my brain. I'm willing to take classes, study, practice, and buy some equipment required for the skill.

Please tell me about your skill/hobby that gives you purpose. I've kind of exhausted google search which always returns the same 20 or so craft suggestions like "make custom invitations for weddings", and while that sounds good for someone, it may not be good for me.

Current hobbies: Music composition and gardening,

EDIT: trying to move away from hobbies that involve me sitting in front of a computer. I already do that way too much.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

It's definitely been life-changing for me. I never had the "touch". When I'd do stuff around the house, I'd put in screws at crazy angles and drill holes in the wrong places on walls. I never felt like I could fix or build anything. Machine tools let you build crazy shit without relying on your visual reasoning or coordination. You want a hole at a spot? Move the handwheels to that spot and you're there. There's no fucking around. That built up my confidence, and the stuff that does require spatial reasoning (like using a file to turn a round hole into a square one) happens slowly enough that you can make mistakes and still be okay.

If you decide to get into it, I'd recommend getting a lathe first. if you can't afford a mill, a drill press is still very useful. You can do almost anything on a lathe if you try hard enough, and a drill press makes some things a lot easier. Blondihacks will have a lot more to say about it, but I believe that's her recommendation.